Wednesday, October 13, 2010

One of the wonderful things about writing a blog is that people often reach out to talk about something that interests them or ask to meet up for a chat (if they live in Sydney).

Over the past few months, I've had quite a few discussions with various people in person and have found them to be mutually beneficial. In many cases, I actually got more out of it than the person who wanted to meet up in the first place.

I do have a pet peeve however. If you randomly (by "random", I mean if I've never talked to you before either in person or via some sort of online medium) invite me to "connect" with you (e.g. on LinkedIn), at least change the standard message and tell me why you are reaching out.

So, I'm apologising to those of you out there who have sent me invitations on whatever social/business networking thingy you chose and have yet to receive any acceptance on my part. I've just explained why your invite is sitting in limbo.

Back to the actual point of this post: if you reach out to me (in a non-random manner), I usually respond. So please feel free to do so. If you are based in Sydney (or happen to be passing through) and want to meet up for a chat, go right ahead (use my contact form, but please introduce yourself).

If you want to talk shop (Identity, Access, Security), the coffee is on me :-)

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

The big news in the Identity & Access Management (IAM) world today is Oracle's acquisition of Passlogix. In fact, I made the observation 2.5 years ago (when talking about IBM's acquisition of Encentuate) that the most logical suitor for Passlogix was indeed Oracle.

It was only a matter of time, but I'm surprised it's taken Oracle this long to officially add enterprise single sign-on (ESSO) to their suite. I use the word "officially" because Oracle's long-standing OEM agreement with Passlogix means customers are unlikely to see much change in the short term. It simply means Oracle will officially own the technology powering their ESSO product instead of having to "repaint" it red & white. You might also see quicker turnaround times in getting your queries answered and your support calls resolved, so I suppose that's a plus.